Black Sun's Zenith
by Lord Forte
Summary: In her quest to uncover the circumstances of Diana's heresy, Leona ventures to find the truth of it all. When she journeys to the place where it began, she finds herself confronted by the harsh reality of her decision. The morrow's dawn may yet glimmer with a dark corona.


High atop Mount Targon, beyond the Rakkor encampments and Solari enclaves, was a ruined temple. It had been carefully carved into the mountain, a grand architecture shaped into the stone rather than placed. Meticulous care had been given in its construction; walls and floors, ordinary elsewhere, had inscriptions written on them. Window frames were tall and grand, once filled with richly stained glass that had long since been shattered. The faintest hints of tapestry could be seen hanging from their posts, reduced to nothing but fray threads.

_To think she did all this on her own,_ Leona thought darkly while she took careful steps. Walking upon one of the main pathways that cut through the center of the temple, she could see what remained of the Solari's construction. Distressingly, she could very clearly tell how each part of the temple was destroyed. Braziers had been turned upon the carpentry, scorching the floor and walls. Delicate support columns, precariously balancing balconies and overhangs, had been knocked out.

_She blasted through there; probably due to a barricade,_ the Sun Avatar noted as she passed through a blown apart doorway. The huge wood double doors had been knocked off their hinges, with one shattered into chunks across the walkway. Dark red smears on the ground told a grisly tale of the unfortunate souls who guarded it.

Leona reached the main atrium of the temple. The room was massive in its size and circularly designed. Four entryways, symmetrically aligned in a cross manner, were the only paths through. As she examined above her, she took note of the ceiling's frame. Where there had once been an elaborate wooden icon of the Sun, there were only scorched support beams. The center piece was completely gone.

_Perhaps not wholly missing, _Leona mused as she stepped onto a chunk of wood. The pieces strewn across the ground were too damaged for her to identify. She wouldn't put it past her rival to have simply destroyed the sun icon. Pausing near the center of the room, Leona took a moment to recall where she was going.

_The Elders' Chambers should be … straight ahead? The side chambers are for archives if I remember, _she resumed her march through the desolate atrium. Her armored boots annoyingly clanked against the stone floor, resounding around her. The Solari warrior stopped as something odd reached her ear. Turning around slightly she angled her head to the left entryway and listened.

_Someone else? _Leona contemplated before an odd sound reached her other ear.

_No, just my steps reaching the hallways._

She shrugged her shoulders as she got going again. Leona paid no mind to the echos, instead busying herself with the floor in front of her. Solari religious texts had been inscribed into the stonework but she was bad at reading their form. Some parts she could recognize, mostly her title and some names, yet it was mostly gibberish.

Leona stopped as she reached another set of wood double doors. These ones were still on their hinges, and the locking mechanism in the center had been destroyed - or, more accurately, torn out. Grabbing onto one of the doors with her gloved hands, she slowly dragged it open. A scraping sound screeched as it ground against the stonework. Leona had to stop after barely opening it enough to slip through sideways. She rubbed her ears, wincing at the terrible memory as it left her.

Awkwardly she slipped through the door opening and landed in a short hallway. Alcoves were built into the walls, and what appeared to be statue bases were inside them. Whatever was built there was long gone, however. The only recognizable piece Leona saw was one statue base that had a pair of legs attached to it.

_Did you truly leave nothing unscathed in your rampage, Diana? _Leona wondered.

The Sun Avatar had to pause when she reached the Elder's Chambers. What should have been an elaborately arranged debate forum was instead little more than a grisly graveyard. The grand debater stands were gone and the Elder's table, situated in between them, had been shattered across the ground. Spectator seats, which lined the above the chamber floor 7 rows deep, were reduced to glossy melted rock. The evenly spaced windows above them were nothing more than holes in the wall. At the center of the room was a deep black crater and above it a huge hole in the ceiling.

Her hackles raised instinctively as a sinisterly morbid sensation passed over her. The air was unnaturally still and all around her Leona could feel a simmering rage. She suppressed the urge to unsheathe her sword and ready her shield. There wasn't a threat here, she knew, but the hostility her heart felt was immense.

"This is where it happened," the Sun Avatar spoke absentmindedly. Her voice, quiet as it was, sounded overbearing to her in the empty room.

"Isn't it, Diana? This is where they took you," her observation went unanswered by the room. Inwardly she stepped and came to a stop at the edge of the crater. Leona bent down to one knee and gently ran her finger across the broken rock. To her it seemed as ordinary as anything else; yet a burning fire crawled up her fingers as she felt along. Jerking her hand back she quickly looked at it and noted her glove was perfectly fine.

_Was this where you gave into the Moon? Or where we threw you to it?_

The Sun Avatar hastened to stand at that. She wasn't certain what she could do here, now that she had finally arrived. The Solari Temple was in ruins and it would take years, if not decades, to repair all the damage Diana had inflicted. That's something she knew, objectively speaking. The anger and the sorrow that festered in the room was different. It had been burned into the very stone itself; a vitriolic rage so stifling it was palpable to Leona.

A strange sound reached her ears. It was a foreign noise, a type of metallic droning that was out of place for the temple. Her examination of the sound was interrupted by the double doors behind her slamming open. Whipping around the Sun Avatar paused in mid reach for her sword when she saw who it was. Or more precisely, who it wasn't.

_No one is there? _Leona suspiciously wondered while her hand rested on the sword's hilt. As she eyed the hallway, she noticed something different about it. The cracks and damages in the stonework was gone, and the double doors looked fixed. At least one of the Solari statue's was restored as well. The metallic droning filtered through her ears again and this time she could tell where it came from.

Cautiously turning around Leona noticed the rest of the Elder's Chamber was similarly fixed. The debaters' stands, table, and spectator seats were all in pristine condition. It was in fact in those very spectator seats, lounging in blind spot between the windows, she saw something. The figure seemed huge but they were obscured by the shadows. Leona gripped her sword hilt stronger upon seeing the two malevolently glowing crimson eyes watching her.

"Who goes there!?" she demanded, her commanding voice reverberating in the room. The figure did nothing at first, merely watching her. Then she heard an instrument's sound; a string slowly being plucked. After the fourth time it stopped as a deep, masculine chortle came from the figure. Goosebumps raced through Leona at the deathly familiar sound.

"Watch the show," he said in a chilling tone. Leona narrowed her eyes as she tried to figure out why she knew the voice. A presence approaching from behind cut through her concentration. She did a part way turn to quickly survey who might be ambushing her. To Leona's surprise, a ghostly apparition was walking up the hallway. Its robes were a Solari Elder's, but she couldn't tell who it might be.

Leona took a step back to let it pass her by. When she saw it stop before the Elder's table, she noticed other spectres sitting there already. The ghost who had passed her flipped down its hood and her eyes widened. Elder Sriqota, the deceased chief Solari scholar, was angrily staring at the seated ghosts. Its mouth moved as if speaking, but Leona couldn't hear anything but her own breathing.

"What trickery is this?" she asked staring at her unknown guest.

"What you are here for," he cryptically answered. The Sun Avatar frowned at that and sneered,

"I am not here for your games."

An agonized sound came from the shadowed figure. It was a terrible noise of metal scraping against a cord. Leona winced at the ear-splitting volume of it.

"No game," he said with a dire tone. Leona's retort was cut off by Sriqota's ghost frantically waving her arms around. Sriqota appeared enraged, her face contorted and her mouth moving non-stop. One of the apparitions at the table stood up and slammed its hands down in a silencing manner. Sriqota paused and Leona presumed the other figure was speaking.

"Then what are you showing me besides some chamber meeting?" Leona inquired tersely. She took her hand off her sword's hilt but remained tensely prepared. A three-note chord played then, escalating up to a high point before stopping.

"The day the Moon awoke," he remarked, then added, "The night she was cast into it."

The Moon? Diana? the Sun Avatar considered as she paid more attention to the ghosts. They were arguing over something, four of the six at the table had stood now. Sriqota and them were making energetic gestures, hand signs, and expressions. Yet the meat of their conversation was frustratingly absent. Any guess she had to their words was as good as the next.

"Before the hour of death another pleaded for her, alas it was not to be!" the strum of strings rung at the conclusion. A scream, distant and far away, drew Leona's attention back to the entry hallway. There she saw more ghosts, two dressed as Solari guards dragging someone in between them.

"From atop the mountain they dragged her down below, to where her fate turned and waited," the shadow growled in a mockery of singing. Leona didn't care for his attempt, but she caught on to the story he was telling. A haunting guitar solo, slow and stressful, accompanied his words.

"Before the fathers and mothers she was put and there it was they said to her..."

Leona stepped back further as guards placed their prisoner where the crater used to be. From here Leona could clearly see the entire proceeding better. Sriqota appeared horrified as she gestured between herself and the prisoner, much to the visible disapproval of the other Elders. The Sun Avatar couldn't see what was wrong with them exactly. The prisoner's ghostly form was very vague - Leona could only identify the ancestral armor of the Moon Avatar it wore.

_That's Diana ... if she's here, then this -_

"Heretic, heretic!" passionate whispers tickled Leona's ears. They were subdued and distant, much as one would be if they were shouting through a wall. An involuntary shiver crawled down her back at how hateful it sounded.

"BEGONE!" the shadow boomed and the very stones themselves rattled under his voice. Leona jumped at the unexpected shout, whipping around to stare at him.

"'No more are you wanted, no more are you welcome!', They screamed with blades brandished," his voice raised as he sang. Leona watched as he moved on the spectator seats, coming closer to the edge. Huge pauldrons with menacing spikes became visible in the light and a tri-horned iron helm that obscured his face. Another few steps and his immaculately chiseled chest, rippling with steely muscle appeared. His hands, hidden inside gigantic iron gauntlets, held an axe-shaped guitar easily as tall as him.

"'Where is the Sun?', she demanded!"

Diana's struggling apparition drew Leona's attention back. Two more guards that appeared unnoticed were in front of her with swords drawn. The Elders were conversing between themselves as Diana yanked and screamed silently. When she saw the distressing sight before her, Leona's hand twitched for her sword. Catching herself she forced her hand back to her side and watched.

"By her decree do we sentence thee, the fate of all heresies!" the giant man shot his hand up the neck of the guitar as his other one fingered the cords. An ear splitting wail screamed from the instrument in tune with Diana struggling more violently. Just as she broke free the sword guards brought their blades down upon her. Light exploded throughout the room, blinding the Sun Avatar. She covered her eyes to block out the silver light.

The guitar was quiet as her vision recovered. Blinking her eyes to chase away the spots she could make out a glowing figure her before her. Diana's image was alight with lunar energy, and she was kneeling on the ground with her curved sword at the ready. As she looked up to the Solari Elders, the metal man spoke up,

"No more, she whispered!" his hands crawled across the axe guitar, eliciting a disturbingly haunted melody. An involuntary shiver crawled up Leona's back as she watched Diana stand threateningly.

"A new Moon is rising, ignorant thralls," the Scorn's voice reached the Sun Avatar's ears. Yet behind it she could hear the musician's own voice underlining it in a seductive hum. Diana's ghost stepped forward and vanished in beam of light. She reappeared atop the Solari Elder's table, her sword piercing through one of them already.

The music ramped up to match the Scorn's onslaught, but it went unnoticed by Leona. The Solari warrior gritted her teeth at the horrid death that was playing out before her. It screamed against her sensibilities to stand around doing nothing. Yet, supposedly, this was how the events transpired - she was just a spectator to written history.

_I refuse to be idle!_ the Sun Avatar vowed as she turned her full attention to the giant of a man.

"Mordekaiser!" she shouted, punctuating his name commandingly. A rip of cords sounded and the phantasmal slaughter around her faded away. The Master of Metal ceased his guitar playing, and the awful echoes reverberated through the room. As they died down, he slowly turned his head to gaze at her with baleful crimson eyes.

"For what purpose do you mock me?!" the Sun Avatar demanded with clenched fists. He stared at her for a long minute, solemnly unmoving like a statue.

"_Mock_?" he said the word with amusement. Leona narrowed her eyes.

"You toy with the dead and disgrace their sacrifice right to my face!"

"And yet that is why you are here, Leona," he emphasized each vowel of her name slowly. The Sun Avatar didn't appreciate how foul he made her own name sound.

"Is it not? To discover the secrets of the dead ... and find out what happened that night," Mordekaiser drove his point home with a ghastly pluck of his guitar. Leona pursed her lips and a low chuckle escaped the giant man.

"Hope against hope that somewhere in these ruins you could absolve her."

"What I do is none of your business! A better question to ask is why are you of all _people _here?" she spat the word.

"Why, Leona," his eyes curled upwards and though she could not see it, she would wager he was smiling.

"Consider me your - _biggest,_ fan," Mordekaiser held a hand to his masculine chest, the iron gauntlet harshly contrasting against it. Leona shook her head disbelievingly at that notion.

"What?" she asked with her arms crossed over her chest. The Master of Metal took a step back and sat down on the spectator seats, reclining leisurely against them. He set his enormous axe guitar across his lap, a hand resting on the body.

"Yours is a story written in blood, broken hearts, and shattered hopes," he said appreciatively, "Another prose from the endless War in Heaven."

"I know why you are here. That is what fascinates me," he continued on.

"All the Avatars who came before you struck down the Moon, denounced and banished it. But you, you, Leona," Mordekaiser pointed at her with his free hand, "Want to save it."

Leona stiffened as he so callously spoke of her darkest secret. How he knew of it she couldn't clearly fathom, but the truth of his words stung deeply. Her hands clenched unbearably tight and the boiling solar power within her itched for release. The Solar Sword glowed at her hip, begging her to draw it out. She was sorely tempted to.

"That is a bold claim," Leona evasively remarked.

"The truth is no mere claim, we both know that," he countered effortlessly. Mordekaiser propped up his knee and set his elbow against it, holding his head in his palm.

"But for all your work, you were no closer to finding out. Finding what happened that day just seemed to, slip through your fingers," Mordekaiser was baiting her with his truthful taunting, she knew. To what purpose though she could not tell.

"It did. By the time I started searching, the Solari had hidden or destroyed everything," she said with irritation. Rolling her shoulders she eased herself up before she started cramping from the tenseness.

"And you already know why that is," Mordekaiser hummed thoughtfully, "So why try?"

The question hung between them in the stifling quiet room. Leona shuffled her feet to get the blooding flowing through them again. Looking away she examined the ruined chambers again, all the while feeling Mordekaiser's piercing gaze upon her. When she had found the words she wanted to say she turned back to him.

"Because I can save her."

At first he was still, then his chest and arms began to tremble slowly. A low, deathly chuckle escaped his lips. It rose into a gravely laugh that dripped with malice. The Sun Avatar felt herself on edge at the condescending sound echoed through the room.

"Because _you _can save the _Moon_," he repeated humorously. Whatever he was going to say next was cut off by Leona's terse interjection.

"Her name is Diana," she direly corrected him. Mordekaiser's laughing abruptly stopped and he stared at her. Lying back again he set his leg down and put both hands onto his guitar. He idly plucked a string as he spoke next.

"The world itself stands against you. You will be desolate and alone, while your hope remains ever out of reach. The one you want to save will throw herself into the abyss … before ever facing her own truth," he gave a strange, curt half-nod at his own words.

"A truly doom driven fate," the Master of Metal said with finality. While she sought the words to prove him wrong, Mordekaiser picked something off the end of his guitar. It was a small object, what seemed to be a chain, and chucked it at her.

"Catch," he ordered as the sparkling object flew at her. Leona snapped it out of the air and tentatively looked at it. It was a chain, attached to a small rectangular silver ingot. When she turned it over she saw that the other side had been hollowed out, and glass covered a richly printed piece of black paper.

_Lifetime and beyond, exclusive Pentakill concert pass,_ Leona read the wicked bloody inscription and noticed a disturbingly life-like small portrait of her underneath it.

_For Leona, the Radiant Dawn._

When the Sun Avatar looked up back to Mordekaiser, she was startled to see he was gone. The massive man had vanished completely, without a sound or trace. Reflexively studying her surroundings, she concluded he had to be truly gone.

"When the day comes, when the world forsakes you and none will stand by your side ..." Mordekaiser's cryptic voice whispered in her ears.

"Come to a show, my dear. Scream your anger, wallow in pity, be at peace. Misery always loves company."

With that the oppressive gloom of the room was sucked away. The unspeakable rage and sorrow that Leona waddled through earlier vanished in an instant. It happened so quickly she felt a shock pass over her as the normalcy of untainted air brushed against her. Raising a hand to her forehead, she noticed she was breathing hard and sweat was upon her brow. As she settled herself down, the emptiness of the room became apparent to her. Everywhere she looked it was the same as before, yet different in another way. Leona couldn't understand exactly what had happened, although it was clear Mordekaiser had an influence on it.

Was everything all his doing? That raw hatred, she wondered, Or did he take it with him?

It was an unsettling thought she shoved to the back of her mind. A tinkling sound reminded her of the silver stage pass hanging from her hand. Leona glared at it as she considered throwing the wretched thing away. She didn't have the time to entertain such a foolish and trivial distraction. Least of all she didn't need to consort with someone as wicked as that man.

He did help, I suppose, in his own twisted way, Leona grudgingly acknowledged as she eyed the ruined Elder's table.

If that is what really happened ... Diana is the only one who can say for certain.

A weary sigh escaped her as she stowed the pass into a pocket and exited the Elders' chamber. Leona spared no time in leaving, hastily distancing herself from the ruins of the Solari temple. There was nothing left there for her to study, she'd seen everything she needed. Mordekaiser's help or not, the Sun Avatar was still stuck at where she started.

_My friend,_ Leona frowned at her mind's eye of a smiling Diana from before the Moon,_ why will you not let me help?_

_And why do the Solari insist upon stopping me?  
_


End file.
